Month: May 2013

I’ve learned many things lately. Part of it has been learning about the cognitive distortions. I go to a group where this is taught. What I’ve noticed is that personalization and blame are the most common problems people have.

In one of my videos, I talked about how men have been either blaming God or blaming women. This pattern started with the first man Adam when God questioned him about the fruit. If he had just admitted that he ate the fruit, I have a feeling the world would have turned out very differently. Instead, he blamed the woman for giving him the fruit and also blamed God for giving him the woman.

Genesis 3:8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God moving about in the orchard at the breezy time of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the orchard. 3:9 But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 3:10 The man replied, “I heard you moving about in the orchard, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.” 3:11 And the Lord God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” 3:12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it.” 3:13 So the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman replied, “The serpent tricked me, and I ate.”

I think that it was Adam’s blaming that ruined his relation to God as well as his wife. God couldn’t help Adam if he was going to place the blame on others. Sadly, I think that the reason men still hate women is because Adam taught his children to blame women the same way he did. On top of that, people are still blaming God for all kinds of things that he had nothing to do with.

Unless people wake up and start choosing different actions, the same pattern repeats. I think that most often, Christians teach that people are all sinners and in need of Jesus as their savior. Yet often they are also taught that they don’t have the power to fix themselves and can’t help but do the things they did. The teaching of original sin makes no sense at all to me and I don’t believe it. People are falsely taught that they are born sinners because Adam and Eve ate a fruit. Sin is not genetic. If it was, wouldn’t we all be sinning equally? People’s actions are different based on what they learn by the words and actions of other people. However, I still believe we have a choice to either copy the actions of others or to reject them and do the complete opposite.

In my case, I learned to follow the example of my mother and reject the example of my father. I feel bad knowing that there are people who didn’t have at least one loving parent in their lives. It is for this reason that each one of us must be a good example of how to live. Jesus was the first example of how a human should live. I think that there is much to be learned from him. We may never love as perfectly as he did but we still need a target to shoot for.

Every person is setting an example whether they realize it or not. Just because I may not be a parent for example does not mean that children who are around me don’t try to copy me. Also, I kind of make my life very public through my blog and youtube channel.

People also set an example by what they are not doing. People may talk about living like Jesus on Sunday morning but then the rest of the week they are rude to everyone they meet. They talk about witnessing and making sure that people don’t go to an eternal hell, but then they are just watching TV most days and not even interacting with people.

Most of these so called Christians pick on people and blame them for their sins. People get this idea that God is angry at them and that they must first be perfect in order to please him before he will forgive them.

People have long forgotten that God created everyone and loves them. God did not turn against humanity but humanity has turned against God.

My life has changed completely after I stopped blaming God for the abuse that happened to me as a child. After I learned that it was not “God’s sovereign will”, I no longer hated God. I also don’t hate humans for what they have done to me. I understand that often they don’t know better and I feel sorry for them. That being said, that doesn’t mean that I will continue to let them hurt me. It is for that very reason that I was forced to leave every type of “church” organization. The type of God they describe doesn’t sound very nice or fair. I found that through reading,listening, and thinking on my own, I learned more who God really is.

I wish I was able to fully explain what’s happened to me and who I think that God is now. Sadly, some things can’t simply be described in words. However, if you watch my videos or read my blog posts, you’ll get a basic idea of what I think.

I would also encourage people to listen to Joshua Tongol. He makes a lot of sense and presents a loving God which is very different from what you may have heard from a traditional preacher.

But in the end, it is not what I say or what Joshua Tongol says that will decide what happens in your relationship with God. It is between you and God and is none of my business unless you choose to tell me. God can show himself to you without my help, but I like to challenge common beliefs that I think are false to help you question what you’ve been taught and decide for yourself what you believe. Anyone who is trying to force you to believe their way is a control freak.